Wendell Phillips

Born Nov. 29, 1811, in Boston; died there Feb. 2, 1884. US public figure; one of the leaders of the abolitionist movement.

Phillips was educated in law at Harvard University. In the late 1830’s he became a traveling agent and later one of the leaders of the American Antislavery Society, acting as its president from 1865 to 1870. He became famous as an outstanding orator. In 1860, Phillips was sharply critical of the Republican Party and Abraham Lincoln. During the Civil War he was a supporter of extreme measures for conducting the war, and during Reconstruction he proposed that the rebel leaders be banished from the country and that their lands be confiscated and distributed among the former slaves.

In the 1870’s Phillips joined the working-class movement. He proposed a program that provided for the overthrow of the system of hired labor, the abolishment of capitalist corporations and privileged classes, and the introduction of an eight-hour workday. He supported independent political action by the working class without grasping, however, the integral system of scientific socialism. In 1871 he declared his solidarity with the Paris Commune; he associated himself with the First International. Phillips declared his sympathy with the revolutionary movement in Russia in 1881.